More Poems!!

I found this awesome website that is uplifting and happy. That's all they put up there. It's very centered around God and it's one of the few poem sites that I've found that I really like. It's called Poetry For Reflection. You should check it out and tell me what you think!!!!!!

The Difference
I got up early one morning
and rushed right into the day
I had so much to accomplish
that I didn't have time to pray.

Problems just tumbled about me
and heavier came each task
"Why doesn't God help me?" I wondered
He answered, "You didn't ask"

I wanted to see joy and beauty
but the day toiled on, gray and bleak
I wondered why God didn't show me
He said," But you didn't seek"

I tried to come into God's presence
I used all my keys at the lock
God gently and lovingly chided,
"My Child you didn't knock."

I woke up early this morning
and paused before entering the day
I had so much to accomplish
that I had to take time to pray

---Written and Copyrighted by
Grace Naessens
Used with permission

God Is Our Guide
God does not send
More than we can bear
Our hearts will mend
If we keep Him there.

After storms it grows calm,
Dark is followed by sun,
We are held in God's palm,
Love and faith make us one.

Although there are days
That bring trials and pain,
Having faith in His ways
We will triumph again.

When we let go of fear
Prayer and love make us strong
Know that God will be near
To help guide us along.

 ---Author Unknown

Random Poems I like

I guess I like all of these because it makes me think of how I act, especially the second one. The moment I read the second one I was in love with it!! It makes me think, "Do I really give it all to him? Or do I pick it right back up and put it in my backpack to weight me down some more?" Leave a comment to tell me what you think. I hope you like them!!

Anyway

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered ...
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives ...
Do good anyway.
If you are successful you win false friends and true enemies ...
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow ...
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable ...
Be honest and frank anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs ...
Fight for some underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight ...
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you help them ...
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth ...
Give the world the best you’ve got ... ANYWAY.

---Author Unknown

Broken Dreams
As children bring their broken toys
With tears for us to mend,
I brought my broken dreams to God
Because He was my friend.

But then instead of leaving Him
In peace to work alone,
I hung around and tried to help
With ways that were my own.

At last I snatched them back and cried,
"How could you be so slow"
"My child," He said, "What could I do?
You never let it go."

---Author Unknown

The Cold Within

Six humans trapped by happenstance
in black and bitter cold,
Each possessed a stick of wood
Or so the story's told.



Their dying fire in need of logs
the first woman held hers back,
For on the faces around the fire
She noticed one was black.



The next man looking 'cross the way
Saw one not of his church,
And couldn't bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.



The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?



The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.



The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.



And the last man of this forlorn group
Did naught except for gain,
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.



The logs held tight in death's stilled hands
Was proof of human sin,
They didn't die from the cold without,
They died from the cold within.

---Written and Copyrighted by
James Patrick Kinney

Close Reading

In this passage of Nicholson Baker's "The Mezzanine," Baker's matter of fact chattiness but but also cold dispassionate tone expresses his boredom with the everyday life. Baker, while riding a escalator, notices they are "a pair of integral signs swooping upward between the two floors" and meet the lobby's "towering volumes of marble and glass" just above the middle "spreading into a needly area of shine where it fell against their brushed-steel side-panels." Through out all of this passage, Baker expresses himself with fancy yet intimidating words.

Close Reading Bingo

Weakness 1. Avoid "he says" quote introductions-

•  Kayyy Babyyy- He says whatever comes to mind, saying that his parents "would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them," shows that he doesn't really care what he says, just wants to get his point across.

Weakness 6. Avoid the verbs "use" and "shows."

• Kayyy  Babyyy-He says whatever comes to mind, saying that his parents "would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them," shows that he doesn't really care what he says, just wants to get his point across.

Weakness 3. When discussing your supporting quotes, don't be vague:

• UNDERWATER-He describes the boy’s feelings towards his parents with a negative, abusive and defiant diction.

Weakness 6. Avoid the verbs "use" and "shows."

• UNDERWATER-Therefore, the author uses tone to show the criticism the boy has towards them to a point of no return.

One really good one I found was off of A Scrap of Parchment :

• In the opening page of Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger underscores the teenage angst bursting though the young, yet disillusioned, Holden Caulfield. Lowbrow words like "lousy," "crap," "stuff,' "hell," "crumby," and "damn" accentuate Holden's anger as he rambles the opening of his story. Furthermore, sentence fragments, such as, "One of those little English jobs that can do around two hundred miles an hour," destroy any last vestige of formality, further developing the aura of simply telling a story to a friend. Despite a Dickens allusion, the majority of the passage is purely denotative, lacking symbolism. This expository passage helps develop Holden's past. Although the majority of this passage is about Holden's family and past, the majority of the character development shines through Salinger's diction and style.
• I think this person did really well!!! I felt smarter just by reading it! Great job A Scrap of Parchment!!

Breaking Dawn!!

So as everyone who knows me knows...I LOVE THE TWILIGHT SAGA!! My older brother and older sister actually got me to read them. I was a little aprehensive at first not knowing if I wanted to. Then I saw the twilight movie and I freaked! I loved it! Of course, then I HAD to go read the books. It took me, suprisingly, two weeks to read the first one. I got the new moon done in a week (because Edward leaves and I thought that was the worst thing that could ever happen so I threw the book across the room into my Papo's wall....waking him up which was not good...and stoped reading it for a few days. Then I picked up eclipse and breaking dawn. I read eclipse while I was laying in bed sick in one day. Then I read breaking dawn in a month. My reasoning for this is I read all but 50 pages in two days. Then I stopped because "once I read the last page, it was over. All over and her story is ended." So I refused to read it! Then my best friend finally got me to read the ending and I finished it. I've read all of them (besides new moon. I refuse to read it again because Edward leaves and I go into depression mode and it's not good lol so I read the first couple chapters until he leaves then I read the ending once Alice gets there). I refuse to read midnight sun because I'll read it and fall in love with it, then what?! It's over just because someone couldn't keep their mouths shut (or would it be computers? or internet??). I don't know I may read it......maybe. I've been to the new moon and eclipse premires (yes at MIDNIGHT!!!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!) and I plan to go to the breaking dawn premire!! I am so excited!!! There is only a few days left!!! As I'm writing it I have 24 days 5 hours 25 minutes and 50seconds. So I ask this fellow bloggers:

Are you going to go see breaking dawn: part 1?!?!?!

If not.......SHAME ON YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!

New Books!!!!

This weekend I went on a mother daughter trip with, of course, mommy, Aunt Barb and her daughter Alishia, Aunt Etta and her daughter Charity, Aunt Pam and her daughter Misty. We were crammed into a small mini-van with a family sized tent, a cot, five suitcases, 13 pillows, four blankets, five sleeping bags, two air mattresses, a cooler, and six rickers pops. It was crammed. So when we got there we went to flea markets and rummaging and the one thing I wanted to get was BOOKS! I was kind of depressed when on the first day all I got was maybe four books, a shirt, a pair of sweats, a matching hoodie, and a necklace for my brother's girlfriend. The next day I decided all I was going to get was books! So I started looking at this place called "Ole Time Flea Market' and I ended up getting another four or so books. It was AMAZING! I loved it! So all together I got eight books. Well I decided to start reading them right away but every time I start reading something happens to take my mind off of what I am reading. On Saturday right before I started reading I decided to get a chocolate shake. Well I'm waiting for her to make it and there is an accident about 75 to 100 yards away so I go to help. That kind of ruined the book reading mood. Then on Wednesday, I got home and was going to read only to find out that my mom had to rush to Atlanta, Georgia because my cousin Steven was having a quadruple bypass surgery on his heart. So for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I was babysitting my little sisters trying to get them to behave (that's hard to do!!!!). Then Saturday I babysat two sisters down the road from six a.m. to about ten-thirty a.m. So I was busy trying to catch up on sleep then I had to drive an hour and a half away to get to my dad's so I got NO READING DONE :( I was soooo sad! So this week I told my mom that I am reading. That's it! All I'm doing is reading!!! She said oooookay...?? She thought I was kind of crazy haha but she loves me. So I have like 9 books hanging out in my room waiting for me to read and what do I do?? I check out four more books from the IMC and start reading those!! What was I thinking?!?!

Vampire Boys

I am reading this series right now that is "A Sookie Stackhouse Novel." It's pretty good...now that I got into it. The one thing I don't like about it is that she is dating Bill. She loves Bill. Then Bill cheats on her. He says he loves her and would never hurt her and never leave her, THEN HE DOES THIS?! He will be all lovey dovey one minute then he will be all jealous and don't touch me. It's worse than a girls PMS!! SO she FINALLY dumped him and decided to rid herself of any type of vampires or supernatural beings. Yeah that didn't last long. She finds a unknown (I really do know who it is but if I told you, that would ruin everything.) vampire and decided to take him in. He doesn't remember ANYTHING!!! So she has to take care of him because she is just that type of person. This vampire on the other hand really isn't one way then another then one way again. I like him more than I like the other!!! Why do people have to do that? It gets really annoying! Why would someone want to hang around you if your all mood swingy all the time?? I know I wouldn't want to. But anyway, she starts to see that with this new vampire she can be herself and not have to worry about what mood he's going to be in today. She can just do her own thing. Now knowing me, I am a hopeless romantic, and so of course this has romance in it but it's also a mystery/murder (DUHHH! of course there is murder!! Vampires!) In this book though, one bite can last longer the older you get. It's a good serious, I recommend it.

Poem!

When I'm with you,
eternity is a step away,
my love continues to grow,
with each passing day.

This treasure of love,
I cherish within my soul,
how much I love you...
you'll never really know.

You bring a joy to my heart,
I've never felt before,
with each touch of your hand,
I love you more and more.

Whenever we say goodbye,
whenever we part,
know I hold you dearly,
deep inside my heart.

So these seven words,
I pray you hold true,
"Forever And Always,
I Will Love You."

- Chris Engle -

Okay So I know it's not super long or whatever but it's sooooooo adorable! Why can't all guys just be honest and tell you what they feel?? Good Job Chris Engle!!

Currently....I am behind!!! =/

I've been reading the many books I got over the weekend and I've read like five or six pages out of all of them, but that doesn't really count does it. The one book that I actually read in was

Vampire Kisses by Ellen Schreiber (pgs. 1-44)

I know. I know. I am really far behind but everyone has a bad week every once in a while. You get in a rut where you just don't feel like reading. This was my week (plus all the horrible things that have been happening!)

My favorite lines:

1. "Dissimilare to Stardust, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian demonstrates a thorough understanding of classy, picturesque language." by The World Is Ours.

2. "Expressive adjectives such as "pinewood," "endless," "gnashing," "bitter," "hobbled," and "oblique" create rich description and depict the dark mood of the passage." Keep It Classy.

3. "The language elevation for all three is moderately high to high and they are all connotative, the sound of the books is what really separates them." by The Average Life of a Teenage Bookworm.

4. "The connotation is figurative and lyrical while the sound melodious as it flows along, defying many grammatical laws." by Intrusion of the Soul. (is this a branch?!)

5. "Neil Gaiman's word choice in the passage from Stardust conveys an elevated, and straightforward read, with a very common sound that is not musical nor harsh." by To Kill A Mockingjay.

I liked all of the "Style Mapping" blogs that I read. They were all good but the reason that I liked these the best is because they somehow just seemed more style mapy (if that makes sense). Like they tried their hardest to get it to sound elevated. They were all good!

Style Mapping

In this passage from Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian," he uses common familiarity and suggestive language mixed with a harmonious and sweet sound. In the passage from Neil Gaiman's "Stardust," Gaiman uses formal elegance and straight-forward language. In a passage from Cherry Adair's "Out of Sight," she uses blunt vulgarity, noisy and straight-forwardness to get her point across. From these three passages, Gaiman had more of a scholarly way of writing. He used words like "amidst," "treacherously," and "placid" setting you into a higher style of writing. Adair's passage is more of a in-your-face type of writing. She says things like "She was in ready position, but frozen like a deer in headlights, sniper rifle silent, and useless, in her hands." To me, that just seems more of a "Hey! Here it is!!!" type of writing. McCarthy, on the other hand, is literal but is elevated in his writing techniques. He uses phrases like He's left behind the pinewood country and the evening sun declines before him beyond an endless swale and dark falls here like a thunderclap and a cold wind sets the weeds to gnashing." Yes, it seems like the people didn't have a high education, but when I read it, I have to think and have to really pay attention to what the author is saying. All of the passages are good in their own way. It just shows that there are different types of writings out there for everyone to enjoy.

Lazy

So I'm reading "A Kiss in Time" by Alex Flinn. It's actually a lot better than I thought it would be. This is from the same author who wrote "Beastly" and "Cloaked." "A Kiss in Time" is Sleeping Beauty's tale...only changed a little. Instead of stopping right after her prince wakes her, it goes on to tell their tale and to show what happens after they awake and supposedly live happily ever after.

At one point in the book, Talia, the princess, is having a conversation on an airplane (a magic flying ship) and says,

Jack's the narrator

She purses her lips in this weird way she does. "What is a movie?"

"It's like television." She saw TV last night at the hotel. "You watch it to

kill time on the plane."

Please, please, let her at least watch a movie.

"Kill time?"

"You know, make it go faster."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because it's boring, sitting and doing nothing."

"But you are doing nothing in the sky! How can that be boring?"

I shrug. "To most people, it is."

"Try being asleep for three hundred years. Then you will

know what boring is."

I don't say anything. I'm one of those people who wants to sleep.

"Everything is boring to you, isn't it?" she says.

 "That's not true."

Is it?

"Oh, no?" She tips her feet to look at the airline slippers again. "Let me

see...your parents sent you on a tour of Europe for...how long?"

"A month. I've been gone three weeks. But I don't know what that's got to do--"

"Three weeks at great expense. And during that time, you've

visited how many countries?"

I count on my fingers--England, the Netherlands, France, Belgium..."I'm not sure.

Five or six, maybe. It's all a blur."

"All a blur," she mimics, then laughs. "But in any case, you have viewed

great masterworks, marvels of architecture, historical sights, and you have

generally found it to be, on the whole, quite dull. Is that the case?"

When she put it that way, it sort of makes me sound like a jerk. But she's not getting the

reason why I didn't want to go.

"Look, you don't understand. My parents, they just sent me to fulfill some

fantasy they have about having a son who's into that stuff. I never get any

chance about what I do in the summer. After I get home, they're going to

want me to take an SAT course and get a job. It's all about them."

"I do not understand about not getting a choice as to how to live one's life?"

I shrug. "Besides, the tour bus sort of sucked."

"Ah. So, in order to get away from the sucking tour bus--"

"Sucky."

"Beg pardon?"

"Sucky. You would say the bus was sucky. That's what Americans would say."

"Thank you. So, in order to get away from the sucky tour bus, you sneaked off,

found a lost kingdom, entered a castle, kissed a princess--an incredible

beautiful princess who had been asleep for centuries due to a curse placed

upon her at birth by an evil witch--caused a fracas, were thrown into a

dungeon, escaped, and traveled cross-country with that

same incredibly beautiful--"

"Not to mention modest." I know I shouldn't interrupt her or I'll never get my

earbuds in, but it's tempting.

"Incredibly beautiful and intelligent princess. And still, your are quite bored, Jack, so

bored you cannot wait to put in you ear buds and

be done with this conversation and this voyage."

I fumble with the earbuds guiltily.

"So my question to you, Jack, is what is it that you do not find boring?"

So there are a couple things I want to point out that I was thinking about when I was reading this passage.

1. The world has become LAZY!!!
Talia made a great point. Jack did amazing things while on his month trip, and he still found it boring and couldn't wait to get back home. He had all this adventure in three days, and he still is wanting to find something new and exciting to do. If you think about it, we do amazing things everyday:

1. Talk on a phone.
2. Ride in a car/bus/taxi, that without that, would take DAYS to get to every place we need to go in one day.
3. Use a computer.
4. Fix our hair (hairdrier, straightening iron, curling iron, moose, gel, hairspray)
5. Drink out of container that can keep drinks hot OR cold for days.
6. Use air conditioning.
7. Use the heater.
8. Watch TV.
9. Read books.
10. Listen to music through a "minuscule box, all so that one can listen to music without the bother of having it performed..."

If you think about it, we do extraordinary things everyday and we over look them. Over the past one hundred years we have changed completly. Technology has gotten better (and scarier), girls are dressing more....openly, boys are dressing more...baggy, our government has changed to where we put it all on a couple people, then complain about their thoughts. We follow "celebrities" around so that they can no t have a normal life because we are always watching.

We have become lazy! Nothing we do is fun anymore. We always have to have new stuff to do and new things to amuse us. Why can't we just be us and not have to have someone sitting there entertaining us?

2. Families are not family anymore.

Think about the last time your whole family sit down to have a meal together. No TV. No cell phones. No outside world. Just you and your family. If you still live at home, you mom, your dad and your siblings, sitting at the family table and talking about your day. Asking thought provoking questions. Really interested in eachother and what has happened in the last twenty-four hours.

Now of you do that every night, good for you! That is great!!! But most families get their own food when they get home, or seperate to different rooms to watch their own TV shows on their own TV's. We really don't consider dinner as a time to catch up with our family. It's so sad. Mother's and Father's pushing their children to do so many great things, just to find that their child doesn't want to do what they are forcing them to do. And children staying away from parents and running to friends and they are not getting good advice from their friends because the friends are not getting good advice from their parents. It's a never ending (and very sad) cycle. 

We need to back to being families and sticking together and noticing how fun and exciting life really is. Once we get that settled, everything will fall into place.

Marked by Passion by Kate Perry...NOT Katy Perry. Kate Perry



So to start off I want to show the difference between Kate Perry (the author) and Katy Perry (the singer). Kate Perry                                                                                      

Katy Perry

As you can see they are COMPLETELY different people.

Marked by Passion is a good book! It may take forever to get through but it's good. I especially liked how at the end you thought you knew everything when you find out you really didn't know all of the story.

It's about a girl who is working in a bar trying to start her career as a painter. She lands a deal with a gallery and is signing the contract when it gets mailed to her. FINALLY her box comes in! She starts to open it when a earthquake happens. She opens up the box a little later in the back to find an ancient scroll, the one she was marked to have. This only means one thing. Her father, the one who forced her to train and forced her into this life of misery, is dead. She doesn't know whether to be upset or not. When she finally gets back to work, a British guy walks in.

      "He walked in tall and broad, his medium-length brown hair fluttering from the

a sword. His focused stare made my breath catch in my chest. His vivid eyes were the

same blues as my favorite glass sculpture at the de Young Museum-bright and clear

but with amazing depth."

So you are instantly intrigued by them. Will they talk? Will they date? Will their love grow? What's gonna happen?! As the story progresses you just fall more in love with Rhys. Until a major let down happens in their relationship. But you learn to overlook it. You want to stop reading it close to the middle but something makes you keep reading it. It's amazing and intriging and compelling. Then a major WOW moment comes and you have to finish it. I loved the book. Try it out and I know you will, too.

Currently

Marked by Passion

Pages read this week: 361 pages

Pages all together: 2596 pages

My favorite quotes from the quarter:

1. "Vic stared at us. 'Wait are you guys freaking out about the whole vampire thing?" I like this because it is just a go with the flow kind of attitude that Vic has.

2. "During gym, I get hit in the head with a volley ball and he teacher lets me sit out of class. It's not like I was doing anything other than standing there staring at the net anyway. I prefer to think of it as multi-tasking since I was deep in thought, trying to remember some of my childhood wishes and playing volleyball, even if I wasn't actually hitting the ball with anything but my head." I like this because it totally works for me. I would be the one to get hit with a volleyball. 

3. "That was then, this is now." I like this one because it is like live in the moment. Don't harp on the past. The past is the past for a reason.

4. "The cliques had formed within a day, and I was caught exactly in the middle. " I liked this one because it's totally me. I've never been popular but I'm not a total weirdo.